When my country first elected a rapist con man president, I started looking. I was born and raised in (and never left) New England, and so I also wanted a place that’s warm year round. It took me four years to tentatively settle on Belize, in late 2019. I made my first visit in Jan 2021, as the pandemic messed up my 2020 plans. By October, I had sold EVERYTHING and moved with two cats.

Reasons (or things I didn’t even know I wanted):

-No DST messing up my sleep schedule.
-No more days with 17+hrs of darkness.
-CARIBBEAN!!!
-Every Belizean I met (exception: gov’t employees and police) is friendly and warm. In N.E., people avoid making eye contact and answer greetings in a way to stop further conversation, but in Belize, the people genuinely want to know how you’re doing and remember everything you tell them.
-No car required
-Culture with proud participation from the public; holidays with vibrant parades, and entire village ecstatically engaged in all aspects.
-Tarantulas walking in the street (my partner and I love them!)
-Path to citizenship without $0.25M investment
-Citizenship there comes with a CARICOM passport, meaning can live and work in most Caribbean nations.
-Food! Fish caught 30 minutes before it hits my plate.

Things that pushed me away from the USA:

-Truck nuts
-Nazi and/or Confederate flags on trucks everywhere
-Cost of housing doubled from 2017 to 2021
-Consumerism -Embarrassed to be a US citizen

So here are the reasons why I relocated;

• Went off to college and like most students I went back home after my first year. It took me about three days to realize my mom’s house was a much bigger mad house than I thought. I moved back to college and knew I was never going back to my home town again.

• After undergrad I joined the US Army with one of the expressed purposes of living in Europe. I was stationed in Germany for three years and I loved it.

• I got orders back to the States and was stationed in Maryland. I fell in love with Maryland the moment I got here.

In my experience, there’s an inertia to staying still. You either need a pull from the destination or a push from the source. I didn’t care where we ended up but I couldn’t live where we were. The state government was persecuting one of my kids and failing on maintaining civil services. The destination wasn’t great but it was better than the source and has family nearby. Overall, I don’t regret moving, but I’m not happy. I went from a terrible situation to a not as bad one. Note - I didn’t say this is good.

Moved inside Europe to another country because my partner had lived 3 years in my home country and complained about everything, so we decided it’s my turn to complain about everything. One more year to go to settle the score.

On a serious note we both love things about each others country and we are both open to live in either. Living and breathing your partner’s culture and environment they grew up in is such a great way to understand them on a deeper level. I finally understand her complaints and she understands mine!

When my previous relationship ended, it just instantly called to me. Knowing that I suddenly didn’t have anyone keeping me where I was, it wasn’t even a day before I knew I wanted to move.

I spent 3 years saving and preparing and making sure it was the right place to go, but never doubted it for a second. Made the right move, too. Happier and more confident than I’ve ever been before.

For out country to country move it was my dad landing a good job and them sponsoring us to move.

For my move from Ontario to BC, Canada it just took a single visit. The scenery and climate in BC was so much better than Ontario. More People had awareness of the environment being important, bikes were everywhere. Social programs made more sense. It just felt like a more civilized society than Ontario cities.

For me it was the money. I couldn’t make enough to get ahead in my hometown so i moved to a smaller city. My living costs went down and my wage went up. It really sucked leaving my friends and family behind but in less than 3 years i went from almost nothing to purchasing a small house.

Moved from small city flat with a 50km commute each way to a large semi-detached in a small town within walking distance to the job. No regrets at all.

I grew up in the Boston area and absolutely hated the cold weather. I moved out when I was 18 to go to college in the Southwest. I literally only applied to warm weather colleges.

I knew I felt completely done with the town I grew up in at the point where I graduated high school. Through some funny circumstances, I then spent an additional 3 years there attending University.

Then I moved to the biggest city in our country in search of better job prospects. It was mostly about the availability of jobs at that point, I didn’t have a specific desire to move to this particular city for any other reasons, as I didn’t really know how it would be to live in a different city. I figured I could always move back - or to another place - if things didn’t work out.

I have never looked back, as I learned that I really enjoy living in larger cities over smaller more car-dependent ones. I miss nothing from my old city, except maybe vicinity to my parents, which was never something I valued particularly highly anyway.

Side question - how do people get the opportunity to move so easily? I work in Tech and the market is brutal right now